Oracle To Acquire Data Solutions Giant Datalogix

Oracle has agreed to acquire Datalogix, a data solutions company that shopped itself around in recent weeks, as AdExchanger has reported. As we previously reported, Facebook, Nielsen and Adobe have also shown interest in the business.

Although the deal price was undisclosed, Oracle paid about 6.25x for BlueKai. If Datalogix had revenue of $125 million, that means Oracle would have paid about $780 million using BlueKai as a barometer.

"The addition of Datalogix to the Oracle Data Cloud will provide data-driven marketers the most valuable targeting and measurement solution available," said Omar Tawakol, group VP and General Manager of Oracle Data Cloud, in the acquisition announcement.

"Oracle will now deliver comprehensive consumer profiles based on connected identities that will power personalization across digital, mobile, offline and TV," he added.

Oracle's swoop-in on Datalogix concludes a highly active year for the burgeoning data platform company. Oracle kicked off 2014 with an estimated $350-$400 million acquisition last February of data services and technology company BlueKai. And Oracle's seemingly made a tradition of "holiday shopping." It acquired cross-channel campaign management tool Responsys for $1.5 billion just days before Christmas last year.

With Datalogix, Oracle gets a pertinent link between online and offline data. With Oracle's entry to market with the "Oracle Data Cloud," the company is exploring ways to apply data signals into broader enterprise use cases beyond just marketing. Oracle, with its long history in CRM, sales and customer experience, can now essentially attribute in-store transactions to digital advertisements (and vice versa).

"Combining Oracle's acquisition of Datalogix with a DMP (data management platform) like BlueKai -- we're seeing how serious Oracle is about acquiring capabilities in ad tech and big data insights," commented Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder of Constellation Research. "[We] expect organizations to deliver 20% of their revenue growth [as a result of] big data models by 2020, and the brokering of insights as a content provider, network, or arms dealer is a new source of competitive differentiation."

"I would speculate that Oracle's (motivation) here is to help drive their core software (and platform) as a service businesses," commented Jonathan Mendez, CEO of Yieldbot. Rather than beginning sell-in in the CIO's office, "they seem to be hoping to begin the sales process at the consumer touchpoint," which has been relegated more so to the CMO.

Oracle's acquisition of Datalogix invites a number of additional questions, including: will Oracle retain Datalogix's branding and standalone data services?

This deal invites some comparison to LinkedIn's acquisition of B2B data company Bizo. LinkedIn essentially scrapped Bizo Data Solutions shortly after the deal closed to instead package data insights as more of a LinkedIn media add-on than as a data service to the broader third-party ecosystem (demand-side platforms, etc.)

As Mark Zagorski, CEO of eXelate noted, data has surpassed media execution as an acquisition target. Companies are looking for ways to combine targeting and attribution with data being the common component. However, Zagorski added, there will arise the question of how "freely" data will flow from "stack to stack" or will it be viewed as a strategic asset of that one platform, and used as leverage in their own deals?

Many platform players, from Facebook to Twitter, utilize Datalogix as a means to tie offline purchase data back to digital influence.

Oracle, in the Datalogix acquisition deal collateral, breaks down its data business into three parts: DLX Auto, which encompasses 20+ years of auto ownership data; DLX CPG, which harnesses data on some 50+ grocery chains, 7,000 brands and 300 categories; and DLX Retail, which the company claims covers 10 billion transactions from 1,400 retailers.

Owning Datalogix will give Oracle "an even richer set of data to work with in bridging their CRM capabilities [with] better ad targeting, messaging and analytics," according to eMarketer analyst Yory Wurmser.

Oracle today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Datalogix, the industry-recognized leader at connecting offline consumer spending to digital marketing that helps marketers increase the effectiveness and measurability of their advertising.

Datalogix aggregates and provides insights on over $2 trillion in consumer spending from 1,500 data partners across 110 million households to provide purchase-based targeting and drive more sales.

Over 650 customers, including 82 of the top 100 US advertisers such as Ford and Kraft, as well as 7 of the top 8 digital media publishers such as Facebook and Twitter use Datalogix to enhance their media.

Oracle and Datalogix's Data as a Service cloud solutions will provide marketers and publishers with the richest understanding of consumers across both digital and traditional channels based on what they do, what they say, and what they buy. This will enable leading brands to personalize and measure every customer interaction and maximize the value of their digital marketing.

The combination fundamentally transforms marketing automation from executing campaigns to being able to correctly identify consumers, target them accurately with digital campaigns, allow marketers to measure which campaigns and channels are effective, and optimize how they reach consumers and spend their campaign resources.

The addition of Datalogix represents a further extension of Oracle's Public Cloud strategy to combine IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and Data as a Service on a common cloud and to transform SaaS business applications and processes by integrating data within these applications.

"The addition of Datalogix to the Oracle Data Cloud will provide data-driven marketers the most valuable targeting and measurement solution available," said Omar Tawakol, group vice president and General Manager of Oracle Data Cloud. "Oracle will now deliver comprehensive consumer profiles based on connected identities that will power personalization across digital, mobile, offline and TV."

"Datalogix's mission is to help the leading consumer marketers connect digital media to the offline world, where over 93 percent of consumer spending occurs," said Eric Roza, CEO, Datalogix. "We are thrilled to join Oracle and extend the value Oracle Data Cloud brings to marketers and publishers."